To Be Ancient

To Be Ancient It is good to be ancient, As with a vintage of the eternal red, Sealed for the duration with an aged English cork. Now youthful impulses hold no sway in the empty offing. I recall them all, as I have remembered certain dreams all my life, Undead ghosts from distant tree-lined shores in time, Strolling languorously in a marshy fetid fog; Their ancient faces I remember caressing, Their yearning eyes and doubting smiles I recall seeing, And the supple lips of some I can still feel, recalling, The passionate interspersed minutes of unreal time, Secretly spent, behind concealing curtains and ascending ivy vines, With no real words of crystalline memory being uttered or heard. And now, returning from wet membranes hidden insidiously, Inside the watery swooshing gullies inside my brain, Old friends and lovers appear again, like in an old film, As they meander an astonished ancient avenue in single file. Look at these dead pale girls here! Girls who once spiraled to the stars in the darkness! Now they tiptoe by my front window, perfume-scented, Seeking their simple tombstones in the far graveyard.